Radio in the rain

It was thunder, lightning and the lack of information was frightening.

It was thunder, lightning and the lack of information was frightening.

I had just left the Chestnuthill Township supervisors meeting when the weather got violent Tuesday night.

While dodging bolts of lightning, I looked for comfort from my old friend, the radio.

Scanning the FM dial from the top of the band backwards, I waited through song after song for a live voice and a weather report.

I knew it wasn't raining men, but I wanted details.

How big is the storm? Any reported trees down? How fast is the storm moving? Any roads shut down? Should I worry about flooding? Most importantly, I wanted to know if anyone out there was experiencing this with me?

Certainly the other cars moving at a snail's pace were all potential listeners, but I wanted the friendly or even authoritative voice of someone looking at a radar screen and in touch with my community.

It would have been comforting.

Meanwhile, back

at the station

It takes a certain amount of courage to sit in a studio attached to a transmitter attached to a tall metal tower during a lightning storm.

When lightning strikes, and it will, the station may get knocked off the air.

If electricity goes out, radio stations have back-up generators.

This way in an emergency, information can be broadcast to cars and battery powered radios.

Radio is a 24-hour business with an increasingly 9 to 5 staff. Often towers and transmitters are miles away from the studio.

That's why transmitters can now be turned back on after a lightning strike remotely, with a computer or a code punched into a telephone.

The Emergency Alert System is an updated (1994) version of the Emergency Broadcast System — that screeching tone preceded by, "This is a test. This is only a test."

Each station has a machine that goes crazy during storms. It spits paper the size of a grocery store receipt with storm information.

The tiny machine can also override programming on an automated station and verbally deliver information about the weather.

That is why you sometimes hear a weather alert interrupt a song.

The Emergency Alert System is run by the Federal Communications Commission, FEMA, and the National Weather Service.

Beyond weather, it is designed to enable the president to speak to the United States within 10 minutes, a process which involves an interesting authentication procedure.

Still, nothing beats a live human voice when your windshield wipers are slapping out a tempo that keeps a perfect rhythm with the song on the radio.

When the weather looks frightful, automated stations should plan to throw a warm body behind the microphone, before people completely forget this used to be a basic service on the air.

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